The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely sophisticated devices, and computer systems may be found in many different settings. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware, such as semiconductors and circuit boards, and software, also known as computer programs.
One important use of computer systems is to provide users with the ability to monitor, access, and interact with data objects as the data changes. For example, a computer that is executing multiple processes or jobs may have a systems management console that provides the system administrator the capability to monitor the status of the various processes in the computer and modify control parameters that are input to the processes. In another example, a computer may represent physical world objects as data objects and allow a user to monitor, access, and interact with the physical objects via the data objects. Representing various machines or equipment in a factory setting, various generators in an electrical utility, or various switches in a rail-yard are all examples of representing physical objects via data objects. Visual debugger applications and web portal interfaces are further examples of monitoring and interacting with data objects.
Typically, the data objects are displayed on a workspace on the user's computer monitor in multiple views, where the multiple views can be seen individually or all at the same time. Often, the user interacts mostly with a main view, and a number of auxiliary views either support the main view or provide additional information. The main reason for the workspace user interface with the multiple views is to help the user navigate through a large data set. A computer system may have hundreds of lists of data objects and thousands of objects, and keeping track of the data in an organized manner is critically important. A workspace provides an organization and a structure for the data, where users can view the data in which they are most interested in the main view while keeping track of other pieces of data in the auxiliary view.
Many times when users are working in a first view, an event that requires their attention interrupts them and causes them to switch to a second view. The problem is that current workspaces do not provide a satisfactory way for users to work with the second view while still monitoring the first view. Currently, users attempt to handle this problem by resizing the views, e.g., resizing the second view to be larger and the first view to be smaller. But, this is cumbersome and time consuming and makes the data in the first view harder to see since the first view is smaller, critical data is mixed in with information data, and mostly likely the user will need to scroll within the smaller view to see the critical data. Some products provide functions called skins, setups, or layouts, which alter the format of the data in the views, but these are time-consuming and cumbersome to use, and still suffer from the problem of the data being difficult to see when the view becomes smaller.
Without a better way to handle multiple views of data, users will continue to suffer with the inconvenience of not being able to see and monitor all of their data.